


Dark Phantoms

by Sweaters (Guhs)



Series: Pale Danvivor [5]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Better to be safe than sorry with this one, Brief depiction of violence, Character Death In Dream, Dark, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Nightmares, Not major but it is one line and they are sort of applicable for it, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sorry guys, TW Unconscious Suicide Attempt, Worsening Dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 23:09:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17990261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guhs/pseuds/Sweaters
Summary: Nate has another trauma-related nightmare.





	Dark Phantoms

Cold. An endless expanse of white. The ground, the sun, the sky. Cold. Thunder in the form of gunfire, hail in the form of bullets. Bang! Scream,  _ whump _ . There is no sound as the bodies hit the snow, only red as blood forms pools, rivers, whole oceans among the bodies. The only warmth in this ungodly circumstance. Cold.

An outpost, a brief rest. A supply run. “Sergeant Thomas, we need to decide what to do with the hostages.”

“Let them go. They’re harmless.”  
“Sarge… they’re the enemy. And now they’ve seen how we operate. They may  _ look  _ harmless, but who knows what the Chinese train for? We’d be offering the Reds a path straight to us if we let them go!”  
“Alright, alright! Keep your composure, soldier. Just… stand guard for a minute. I’ll handle it.”

Silent footsteps up to the shack. Cold. The door makes no noise as it opens. Cold. He hears the baby crying in the corner before he sees it, tucked tightly into its crying mother’s arms. He pauses, just for a moment. Nora. Shaun. Crying, shaking, pleading.  _ Please don’t do this you don’t have to do this _ . He raises his pistol.  _ No honey please we love you so much we can just go just let us go just let us  _ **BANG!** A baby screams.  **BANG!** Silence.

He tucks the pistol up under his chin. His wife is still pleading with him with a hole through her forehead. _Nathan. Nathan. Nathan. Nathan. Nathan, stop! Put the gun down! Drop it!_ Cold metal in his hands, too wet, slipping in his palms. Something is pulling his hands. He sees white, nothing but white, the absence of color in an indifferent sky that should not be there. 

A streak of yellow. An explosion. White into black into gray into color, dots at the corner of his eyes. A lantern glowing on top of a desk. Cold. Empty. Nothing.  _ Nathan, for the  _ Nora _ love of God, put the  _ Nora _ gun down! You’re alright, please put  _ Danse _ the gun down!  _ Danse. Danse’s voice. Fear. Panic. A hand wedged between the barrel of the gun and the flesh of his throat.

A desk. A dresser. A lantern. A poster. His bed. His bedroom- his bedroom. He was home. There was no snow, no bodies, no wife. A biting wind whistled through a crack in the boarded windows.

Danse kneeled on the bed in front of him, pure terror on his face like he’d never seen before. Pulling. Pulling what? Pulling the gun that Nate was holding to his own throat.

Warm hands smell of steel sound of panic brown eyes Danse sweet breath Danse gun to his throat Danse  **Danse** Sanctuary post-war safe alive safe alive safe

Blink. Gasping awake. Finger off the trigger. Gun wrenched out of his hands, onto the floor, clattering away.  
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, fuck, I’m sorry. Fuck. Fuck.” Who was that? Did he say that? Crashing out of bed, into the corner, arms around his head, knees up to his chest. A warm body next to him, against him, holding him, cradling him. Iron grip, no retaliation.

“Relax. Relax. Listen to my voice, Nathan. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

They stayed like that for a while, until the sweat dried, until his breathing calmed, until his thundering heart slowed enough to hear the soft words vibrating against his ear. The shaking didn’t stop. He could only focus on the faint blue glow of Danse’s dog tags. He didn’t dare close his eyes.

“How long was I out?” His voice was hoarse. It didn’t sound like it was a part of him.  
“Maybe eight minutes this time. You were just talking to yourself at first. You do that a lot.”  
“I didn’t… hit you again, did I?”  
“No. But…” Sigh. “Nevermind. Relax. Now isn’t the time to worry.”  
“But what?”  
A long pause. “I don’t think you should keep a gun by your bed anymore. Tonight was lucky. If I hadn’t needed the desk to draft that report, I… you would’ve killed yourself.”  
“No, I think I would’ve… woken up. I always do.”  
“You didn’t see what I saw, Nate. There was no life in your eyes. I’ve never had to fight so hard to disarm a sleeping man.”  
“I killed my wife and son.”  
“What?”  
“In the dream. It was Alaska and we had hostages, but instead of Chinese soldiers, it was Nora and Shaun. And they were begging. I looked my wife in the eyes and shot her, the same way she died in the vault. Then I shot my son.”  
“I’m… so sorry.”

There was no talking for a while. Just Nate and Danse, a collective quivering mass, punctuated by spurts of shuddering, of shooshing. Who knows how long they had been sitting down there?

“You called me Nate.”  
“I guess I did. Oh. I’m sorry if-”  
“Say it again.”  
“... Nate?”

One slow, quivering breath. Nate let his arms relax, crossed them over his chest. He could only close his eyes if his face was buried in the darkness of his companion’s arms.

“Keep talking, please.”

It must’ve taken until halfway to sunup for Nate to fall back into an uneasy sleep, lulled into a comfortable sense of security by the iron grip and sound of his name, among other things, on the Paladin’s lips.

.

**Author's Note:**

> I know this one was really dark compared to the others and I'm sorry for kind of breaking that streak, but it was an idea I had from the first chapter I wrote of these one-shots and just kind of forgot about until now. The trauma that Nate must have experienced both from the war and from seeing his wife shot a few feet away from him is never really touched on properly in-game, so I wanted to do something with it. War is hell for everyone involved, even two-hundred years after it's over.
> 
> No snappy one-liners about this one, but I hope it reads pretty genuinely. More happy things to come.
> 
> P.S. I noticed I'm kind of flooding the tag a little bit so I might try to kind of slow down a bit. But, if it's something anyone is interested in, I'm thinking about making an actual series? I don't know if I'll use this specific rendition of Male Sole and Danse, but the general idea of just 'canonically attached story progression' as opposed to 'a bunch of detached one-shots that don't have to be related if you don't want them to be'. Just a thought.
> 
> Have a good day, guys.


End file.
